I’m very lucky, as a relatively new gardener, to be the “custodian” of my granddad’s glorious oasis and it continues to pulsate with colour even under my novice hand.
This is my third Spring in the village and I wondered what other folks do to their daffodils and snowdrops, once they’ve gone over? I realise this may be as controversial as asking if you should have brown sauce or ketchup on a bacon butty, but any advice would be appreciated. I’ve been told to leave them, to cut them, and even plait the leaves… but what is the general consensus in Parwich?
Caroline G aka the Woolley-headed Gardener.
(P.S Brown sauce for sure!)
PARWICH.ORG 
Caroline, the basic principle is that you want the bulbs to store as much nutrients as possible to ensure the best flowering next year.
The text books say you should let the leaves wither and dry to achieve this. Also it seems to be that current advice is not to tie up or plait the leaves as this interferes with the process. On this basis you should also dead head the bulbs to stop them producing seeds; I have always understood that commercial bulb nurseries cut all the flowers in order to grow stronger bigger bulbs to sell. Phil K mentioned his grandmother used to spend hours dead heading daffodils, and now it is no longer done their’s don’t flower as well.
In theory if you cut the leaves before they have withered the greater the chance of fungus or disease getting into the bulbs through the damaged leaf stems, though I have no idea how likely this is.
Having said the above I have not always followed this advice, and at times have cut grass removing green leaves from bulbs without aparant ill effect. A lot of years the daffodils by the stone stoops on The Green get mowed before they have started to die back, but they reappear again the following year.
Also a lot of bulbs, particularly daffodils do well after a Summer baking in the sun. Some species do not flower without this. I dug up a large amount of daffodils in the garden at Hallcliffe that were not flowering well and were very overcrowded, but left them in full sun on top of a wall for at least two months before I got round to doing anything with them. The next year they flowered spectacularly well. On this reasoning the sooner any long grass, etc is cut the better, to help the ground warm up.
I guess the limiting factor is how long you can tolerate the mess of dying and withering leaves, but not following the text books may not be a disaster.
My (slightly) more famous namesake says cut out the flower stems but leave the leaves to keep feeding the bulbs.
Monty
(Brown sauce)
Thank you for the responses. I have left the snowdrops to their own devices and will start dead heading the daffs this week. I’ll be back in 12 months with the results!
That’s what I do too Caroline. Chop the heads off and leave the leaves alone until I can’t bear the mess any longer. I’ve had quite a bit of slug damage this year too, whole flowers completely nibbled off.
I normally get attacked by slugs and snails, Lynn, (well, not personally!) but I started on the defence earlier this year after reading a suggestion online. So far, so good. But if I’m not at the next meeting, it’s because they have all ganged up and slimed me!
Yuck! Let’s hope not! 😳